Warning Shot

During a stakeout, an L.A. cop kills a doctor who presumably pulled a gun but the coroner's inquest finds no gun, forcing the cop to look for it to clear his name. Police Sergeant Tom Valens (David Janssen) kills a man who pulls a gun on him during a stakeout. But the dead suspect is a respected doctor with no criminal record and the man's gun cannot be found, and the Sergeant is charged with manslaughter. The Sergeant works to clear his name and determine where the gun went and why the doctor was there at all. —Sean Taylor <st52@cornell.edu> A stakeout for a prowler on a fog-shrouded night at a large apartment house goes tragically wrong. Sergeant Tom Valens (David Janssen) spies a man walking speedily from the apartment and tells him to stop, but the man flees, is eventually cornered, and pulls a gun on Valens. Valens shoots the man and he dies, but his gun disappears in the darkness, and a search by other Police cannot locate it. For Tom Valens, the nightmare is just beginning, for the man he shot is Dr. James B. Rustin (Donald Curtis), a respected physician who has won the admiration of much of the city and who has earned international notice for mercy flights to Baja, Mexico. Charged with manslaughter, Valens appears guilty, but Rustin pulled a gun, a gun that somehow disappeared, and with no one else on his side, it becomes Valens' mission to unearth the full truth about James Rustin. At every corner, Valens is stymied in his investigation of Rustin, but his digging unearths disturbing discrepencies in Dr. Rustin's life. He also incurs the wrath of an ally of Rustin who tries to kill Valens in his house and commits a murder that Police believe is the work of Valens. Facing life imprisonment, Valens must betray his former partner as he finds the clue needed to clear his name, but one other factor must be dealt with in, ironically, a cemetery. —Michael Daly (fanstp43@aol.com)